ANC 3F asks Mayor Bowser, NPS to pause permits for Soapstone sewer work

An exposed sewer pipe in the Soapstone Valley in 2013.

by Marlene Berlin

ANC 3F is taking its concerns about DC Water’s Soapstone Valley sewer rehabilitation project to the mayor.

The commissioners voted at their January 18th meeting on a resolution urging Mayor Muriel Bowser to use her authority, similar to a temporary injunction, to suspend permitting for the project. The resolution also calls on the National Park Service to pause permits until there’s a new environmental assessment or equivalent study of cured-in-place pipe (or CIPP) and the thermal and UV methods of curing the new lining. And, it urges DC Water, NPS and the DC Department of Energy and the Environment to bring in an independent, impartial third-party expert to review the proposed methods of relining the 110-year-old sewer pipes, and of mitigating the human health and environmental risks posed by the work.

The vote was unanimous – 6-0-0. The seventh ANC 3F commissioner, Dipa Mehta, drafted and presented the resolution and closely questioned DC Water representatives in attendance, but had to leave the meeting before the vote.

DC Water’s preferred method is thermal CIPP, which uses hot water or steam to cure the lining, but community members have been questioning that preference since 2019, when the project’s Environment Assessment was released for public comment. Comments about the possible release of toxic contaminants into the air and water were not answered by the National Park Service’s “finding of no significant impact” in 2020. The community again raised concerns during a joint ANC 3F and DC Water meeting last December.

Then, on Friday, January 14th, four days before the ANC meeting, DC Water notified the commissioners of its plans to use hot water instead of steam to cure the resin pipe lining.

“We feel like eliminating the steam eliminates the method that clearly has the largest potential for pollution,” DC Water design manager William Elledge told the commissioners at the meeting. “Comparing the water cure and UV cure – we see those as being on par with each other as far as health and safety are concerned.”

DC Water representatives also said that a non-styrene-based resin would be used for the lining, and that water pollution would not be a concern as the water used for the curing process would be captured and sent to Blue Plains for treatment.

The late changes did little to dispel the commissioners’ concerns, and in Mehta’s case, served to reinforce them.

“We’ve heard from DC Water they are saying that they have made, certainly to their mind, a significant pivot that has important consequences,” Mehta said. “Precisely because of this shift, it feels like it’s all the more reason to call time out on this and allow the community to consider more of the implications around this new process.”

Fellow commissioner Monika Nemeth asked if there was a risk analysis document on the three CIPP methods, with pros and cons, that could help the ANC and the community understand how DC Water reached its decision. Elledge said there was no such document, and that DC Water had reached its conclusions after conversations with subject matter experts.

Marjorie Share, a community member who has worked with the ANC on the Soapstone sewer issue for years, said an analysis of the CIPP pros and cons was required by the environmental assessment, but never provided. Share also said she wanted to trust DC Water but was finding it difficult.

“You’ve switched and so you listened to the community, which is absolutely wonderful, but how can we have confidence when you are imposing upon us a method, a technique, that you now say is not safe, and there’s a safer one?” Share asked. “If there was a safer one, and you didn’t even want to use UV, why didn’t you suggest that one in the first place?”

“I want you to trust us as well,” said DC Water COO Kishia Powell, “and to be honest and blunt here, I feel like we have dropped the ball a little bit.” Powell said the agency will return to the community with a presentation that includes detailed information on the CIPP methods.

“We do have that time to have multiple conversations before that work is intended or scheduled to start,” Powell said.

When DC Water intended to begin the work wasn’t clear. Powell said tree cutting and removal required to bring in equipment for the relining could start as soon as this spring, she said, and if that doesn’t happen it could delay the project significantly.

As 3F commissioner Stan Wall called for a vote on the resolution, he said that the trees should not be touched until there is clarity about and evaluation of the technologies. He also reiterated what he had heard from community members and other commissioners.

“We do want to see DC Water be successful, and we do want to see this project be completed,” Wall said. We just need more information to help us understand how DC Water is making the decisions that you’re making, and how you’ve evaluated the range of impacts of alternative methods.”

The following Friday, January 21st, Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh sent a letter to DOEE Director Tommy Wells with the ANC’s resolution attached. The letter outlined concerns about toxic emissions and wastewater produced by the CIPP methods, given that DC Water planned to use CIPP technologies across the District. Cheh requested a summary of findings from any DOEE reviews of each CIPP method, and if no assessment exists, urged the agency to begin one as soon as possible.